The bargain site Luupo is for sale (German link), one of the biggest drivers of e-commerce innovation here in Germany and source of inspiration for several imitators.

Luupo is a “reverse auction” type of site based on the sale of consumer goods whose prices are falling but are also hidden. To uncover the current price, users pay a nominal fee, thus providing the revenue used to reduce the sale price. With that concept, Luupo was one of the first online merchants who focussed on designing an entertaining and exciting sales process to generate sales revenue. And all that without requiring suppliers to kill margins with deep discounts.

Suitably quickly, Luupo became a role model for other German sites like xgewinnt, Rabattschlacht or Preis-zeigen.de.

When properly implemented, concepts such as Luupo’s are perfect for a networked Web2.0 world. Unfortunately, after a illustrious start, the founders were never able to develop more in this direction.

Interested buyers can make offers until March 15. Exciting Commerce is very interested in seeing who will be leading Luupo further.

For suggestions and ideas to where Luupo can be taken to the next level, Jochen Krisch has been analysing the company and concept from the start and may be contacted (English welcome). At the moment, the formative player in this segment of the German market is Rabattschlacht.

The entire Luupo story is available from our German blog.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.